


As Soon as There Is Life, There is Danger

by Smittywing (Smitty)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-18
Updated: 2008-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smitty/pseuds/Smittywing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Spencer Reid was in trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Soon as There Is Life, There is Danger

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Requested by Pouncer. Written before 4x06: The Instincts aired so the name and gender of JJ's baby were pure conjecture.

1\. When Spencer was young and his mother was in her bed, staring out the window for the third straight day, and he'd eaten the last of the peanut butter, he tried to make scrambled eggs on the gas stove.

He splashed egg on the counter and cleaned it up with a paper towel, but then the eggs started smoking and by the time he found the spoon his mother used to stir, the paper towel had caught a lick of flame and transferred it to the grease splashed on the range top and never wiped off.

Fortunately, Spencer had read about putting out grease fires earlier that year, and poured an entire box of baking soda on the stove. The deafening whine of the smoke detector finally stopped after he'd opened every window in the house and turned on the kitchen fan. His mother never noticed.

2\. The problem with going to college at 13 wasn't that Spencer was too young but that everyone else was too old. He knew what the words meant, he wasn't stupid, the kids in high school used them all the time. But they'd never used them to _him_ and when he went to a party in a fraternity house across from his dorm and found himself with three big guys in a room, he didn't understand why they kept touching his face and why he was so nervous.

He just knew that he was relieved when a girl wearing enough leather and metal to outfit an Iditarod team barged into the room and wouldn't leave until he came with her. She marched him to Doctor Bradley's office - she had the key - and he spent the night there, on the couch. The next day, the girl and Doctor Bradley found Spencer a nice family to stay with while he was away.

3\. The first time Spencer injected himself with laudanum and closed his eyes, welcoming the memories, he knew he was throwing himself into a bottomless pit but couldn't bring himself to even reach for the edge.

4\. Spencer didn't know what he'd find when he set out looking for Gideon, but an unsub wearing Gideon's name and an utterly wrong face was not what he'd hoped. So he talked, and talked, and talked, until the real Gideon, and Prentiss and Morgan, broke down the door.

5\. "Do you want to hold him?" JJ asked from the bed, and Spencer fumbled for an answer until everyone laughed and Emily put the tiny, tiny, squirming baby in the crook of his arm. He looked down into newborn William Jarou LaMontagne, III's huge blue eyes and knew he was doomed. His godson was going to own him _forever_.


End file.
